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The Ten Keys to Old School Success for New School Beginners

The Ten Keys to Old School Success for New School Beginners
by Bango Skank

1. Eat Like a King
Muscle isn't made out of thin air, it's made out of the fuel you provide it and that's food. You can forget everything you've learned and will learn in this article, if you don't eat enough to fuel growth you won't grow. You kids have this idea that you can grow bigger and somehow stay smaller, that you can pack on 20-30 lbs of muscle and keep an Ethiopian six-pack. It ain't gonna happen, or it'll happen so slowly that your grand kids will grow faster than you do. And if you're saying to yourself that you can't seem to gain weight, I got another name for you so-called "hard gainers," it's under eaters! If you're having trouble adding weight to the scale you need to be eating everything that isn't nailed down, then you need to eat everything that is nailed down, and then you need to eat the nails. For guys, everytime you sit down for a meal it's a banquet, a competitive eating contest, it's an Olympic sport! Screw your light yogurt and your skim milk, you need to be downing whole milk, whole eggs, nuts, peanut butter, fresh fruits and veggies, plenty of meat and top it all off with olive oil! And one more thing; if it's not something that your grandparents would recognize as food, it ain't food! This immediately nullifies many things you'd get out of a bag, box or can. This means you need to be sticking to the outside of the grocery store where they keep all the fresh food and skimp on visiting the aisles.

2. Rest Like a Baby
You don't grow while you work, you grow while you rest. Your hard earned sweat and blood will be wasted if you don't give yourself a chance to recover. This means getting at least 8, and more like 10, hours of uninteruppted sleep every night. If you don't have time to rest, then you don't have time to train, it's as simple as that. Resting isn't just sleep either, it's taking a day off when you need it and liesure time with friends and family. It's also taking a full week off every 8-12 weeks. So give your mind, body and spirit all the recovery it needs to replenish itself and grow. It's not being lazy, it's being realistic.

3. Be Skilled, Not Sloppy
Weight lifting is a skill just like in any other sport, and where the skilled will be successful, the sloppy will be in the emergency room. Make it your top priority to always be improving your form, perfecting your movements and mastering your technique. This means educating yourself in the lifts that you will be performing before you perform them. Don't walk into the gym and decide to "wing it" on a new exercises; learn it first, then practice, then perform. One basic rule of thumb will help guide you in all exercises: keep your body in line with itself. This means keeping a nuetral spine (not bent or overextended), keeping your knees in line with your toes, your elbows under your wrist and your neck in line with your spine. I recommend that every one of you read Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. This is the best guide out there on performing the big heavy compound lifts. Also, don't rely on mirrors to tell you what you're doing; mirrors lie! A 2 dimentional representation of a 3 dimentional occurence will never give you an accurate portrayal. I realize most gyms today look like the hall of mirrors in a fun house, but ignore them, and instead pay attention to what your body is telling you. Also if you have access to a digital camera you should record yourself and play it back later to assess proper technique. This is better than a mirror because a) you'll be watching yourself after-the-fact, not during it, b) you can replay as many times as you like, and, c) you can post it on-line for immediate feedback.

4. Progress or Die
Progress in weightlifting, strength training or bodybuilding are all measured the same for you beginners; it's adding weight on the barbell and adding weight on the scale every week. These are the only two measures that you need concern yourself with at this point in your training. It's not how much you bench, it's how much more you benched than last week, it's not how much you weigh, it's how much more you weighed than last week. You are your own toughest competition and every week is a new chance to come out ahead. Little by little, just keep upping both strength and size every blessed week. If one ceases to increase that means both will cease to increase. If that's the case you're doing something wrong and you need to fix it. 9 times out of 10 you'll need to get more food and get more rest. It's a lot harder to restart your stalled progress than to maintain your consistent progress, so make sure you're never in that position and stay on course. If however your strength or bodyweight actually regress, then more drastic measures might need to be taken. If this happens and it's been more than 8 weeks since you last took a full week off, now is the time to do so. Otherwise another way of breaking the spell is to cut the intensity (the weight) of your workout by 50% for a week; this means benching 75lbs if you normally bench 150. This will give you the advantage of recovering without regressing. After either a week off or a week "deloading" you should be good as new and ready to go.

5. Be Consistent
If you haven't been on a program for at least 4 or 5 weeks you have no business changing to a new routine. It takes at least that long to judge if a program is working or not, and if you've been reading, you'll know exactly how to measure that progress. However if you've been on a program that long and you're not adding weight, even then the program should be the last thing you change. Make sure it's not something else in your lifestyle that is short changing your gains. If you can remove all other possibilities and are left with only your routine to change, then you'd be a fool to stay on it. But whatever you do don't get in one of these vicious cycles of second guessing yourself everytime you start a new routine. Changing your routine every week does not a program make. Avoid paralysis by analysis, make a choice and stick with it. The same can be said of exercise selection; changing your sets, reps, and exercises every week is the same thing as changing the whole routine. Don't do it unless you have to. Also be consistent in your diet and your rest. Consistent choices will give you consistent gains!

6. Supplement, Don't Substitute
There is no legal supplement in existence that will make up for bad programming, bad nutrition or bad recovery, there is no legal supplement that is good enough to merit basing a workout routine on, and there is no legal supplement that is worth spending more money on than the food you eat. 99% of supplements are canned crap. That means that whatever expensive supplement you're taking this week is in all likelyhood a shiny brand new shrink-wrapped turd with a bow on it for all the good that it'll do. There are only 3 supplements that you guys need concern yourselves with:
1) A Mega Multi Vitamin. Your requirements for vitamins and minerals will be higher than the average person, so this is pretty important.
2) Fish Oil. This stuff is as close as we've gotten to an elixer of life. It does so many good things that you'll just have to take my word for it and look it up yourself. Take at least 5 grams per day. I take 12.
3) Whey Protein. This will ensure you're getting the requisite amount of protein that your body needs to grow, but it is not a substitute for food. Drink 1 shake post workout and that's probably as much as you'll need. If you're drinking more than 2 per day, you're literally pissing money away.
If you want to spend your money on extra sups, well that's up to you. I think it's a waste, but as long as you're getting plenty to eat and you're already taking these 3, then feel free to be a lab rat.

7. Overtraining = Underrecovering
Overtraining is The Black Plague of the bodybuilding world and by my estimates your chances of getting either one are about equal. Don't concern yourself with working too hard or too long, concern yourself with recovering too little. There is no amount of training that will put you into an overtrained state, there is only a deficit of recovery that will. Train hard and rest harder and you'll never have to worry about getting overtrained. But be sure to wash your hands just in case.

8. Be Self Aware, Not Self Absorbed
Always warm-up before performing. If a warm-up with 60% or 80% of your max weight feels heavier than it should, take a step back and assess the situation. Maybe you need to back off. Don't lift with your ego. That's a good way to get injured and not be able to lift at all. If you're performing a new exercise always learn it first with little or no weight. When starting a new program or routine never start with your max weight, always work your way back up over the course of a few weeks. Don't ever test your 1 rep max unless you are highly skilled in the exercise and have a very good idea of what your 1 rep max is already. Showing off will get you nowhere that you wouldn't have gotten by taking the sure path, except maybe a trip to the emergency room. Also, unless you're talking about lactic acid burn, adages like, "No Pain, No Gain," are bull**** and should be ignored. If you get injured don't be a nimrod and work through the pain; You Will Lose. Instead do everything you can to heal it via rest, medication and rehab, and otherwise find a way to work around the injury. Make wellness your top priority.

9. Finish What You Start
Go all the way or go home. Set goals for yourself and don't quit until you meet them. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based. A goal could be adding 5 lbs of muscular bodyweight to the scale in a month or adding 50 lbs to your squat in 7 weeks. These are good goals to have and will keep you striving toward the finish-line. If however you find you do need to stop prematurely, make sure it's for the right reasons (only you can define what those are).

10. Drop a Log
The most successful bodybuilders keep very close tabs on their progress by recording every minute detail of their development. This means recording your exercise routines, the weight you used for warm-ups and work sets, and any feedback that the routine gave you such as on your technique. Also your bodyweight, your dietary menu and anything else that might impact your training. Having a detailed training journal ensures that every time you walk into the gym you'll know exactly what it is that you came to do. You can't assess your progress if you don't record it!

Whey Protein. This will ensure you're getting the requisite amount of protein that your body needs to grow, but it is not a substitute for food. Drink 1 shake post workout and that's probably as much as you'll need. If you're drinking more than 2 per day, you're literally pissing money away.

About this...

I drink 3 milk + whey shakes a day, each one coming to about 520 calories and 56g protein. I drink these 3 throughout the time frame of 9am to 10pm, and on workout days, one before & after my workout.

So is this wrong? I live w/ 5 other siblings, and I'll be honest, I wouldn't be reaching my 4000 calories without these shakes as any food in the house is usually consumed while i'm out in class or is not really nutritious in the first place.

I drink 3 milk + whey shakes a day, each one coming to about 520 calories and 56g protein. I drink these 3 throughout the time frame of 9am to 10pm, and on workout days, one before & after my workout.

So is this wrong? I live w/ 5 other siblings, and I'll be honest, I wouldn't be reaching my 4000 calories without these shakes as any food in the house is usually consumed while i'm out in class or is not really nutritious in the first place.

I drink 3 milk + whey shakes a day, each one coming to about 520 calories and 56g protein. I drink these 3 throughout the time frame of 9am to 10pm, and on workout days, one before & after my workout.

So is this wrong? I live w/ 5 other siblings, and I'll be honest, I wouldn't be reaching my 4000 calories without these shakes as any food in the house is usually consumed while i'm out in class or is not really nutritious in the first place.

Are you a beginner? I absolutely think that for a beginner to be drinking 1500 cals, and 168 grams of protein per day in protein shakes is overkill. This means that if your bodyweight is in the vicinity of 170 lbs that any additional protein consumed in the day will literally be pissed away. Excess protein is converted to simple carbs (then added to fat stores) and in the process many waste products are removed by the kideneys and subsequently... pissed out. There are other concerns linked with the screening of excess protein by the kidneys as well, such as calcium depletion.

The volume of whey you're consuming also leads me to suspect that you are drinking shakes instead of getting real food. There is no substitute for real food. I think 1-2 shakes per day for a beginner is plenty.

I've been lifting for about 2 years but I still consider myself a beginner. Long story short, I started lifting, gained a good amount of weight, got cancer this summer and lost a lot of my gains and strength, restarted doing Starting Strength.

I'm def. not substituting shakes for meals. I usually drink them during the end of a meal. ex today, I drank one once I was almost done w/ my morning eggs and bacon.

I've been lifting for about 2 years but I still consider myself a beginner. Long story short, I started lifting, gained a good amount of weight, got cancer this summer and lost a lot of my gains and strength, restarted doing Starting Strength.

I applaud your dedication! A friend of mine has been going through a similar experience:

The amount of protein really depends on your bodyweight; I think 1 gram/lb is a very reasonable target, and of those X grams, 40-50% tops should be coming from whey. The rest should come from a variety of sources.

Are you a beginner? I absolutely think that for a beginner to be drinking 1500 cals, and 168 grams of protein per day in protein shakes is overkill. This means that if your bodyweight is in the vicinity of 170 lbs that any additional protein consumed in the day will literally be pissed away. Excess protein is converted to simple carbs (then added to fat stores) and in the process many waste products are removed by the kideneys and subsequently... pissed out. There are other concerns linked with the screening of excess protein by the kidneys as well, such as calcium depletion.

The volume of whey you're consuming also leads me to suspect that you are drinking shakes instead of getting real food. There is no substitute for real food. I think 1-2 shakes per day for a beginner is plenty.

This does not necessarily apply to intermediate/advanced bodybuilders

"Excess protein is converted to simple carbs then added to fat stores?" Carbs don't get added to fat stores, fat does. Any source of calories eaten to excess will be stored as fat. I don't understand your point.

As far as I know, there is no evidence that a high protein diet causes kidney problems for people without pre-existing kidney problems. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

And he clearly stated that he can't eat enough "real" food. Protein shakes are actually a good substitute for "real" food, if you overlook the fact that whey and milk (the constituents of his shake) are themselves real food.

"Excess protein is converted to simple carbs then added to fat stores?" Carbs don't get added to fat stores, fat does. Any source of calories eaten to excess will be stored as fat. I don't understand your point.

Excess protein is converted to sugar and fatty acids, if those cals are not burned they will be stored as fat. The body can not assimilate unlimited amounts of protein. The rest will be wasted.

As far as I know, there is no evidence that a high protein diet causes kidney problems for people without pre-existing kidney problems. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

The difference between a high protein diet and an excess protein diet would be the excess. I agree that people with preexisting kidney problems (such as kidney disease) will have adverse side effects from the excess amount of protein that their kidneys must filter. The effects of excess protein on calcium loss are not proven, but are well documented; http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/128/6/1051

And he clearly stated that he can't eat enough "real" food. Protein shakes are actually a good substitute for "real" food, if you overlook the fact that whey and milk (the constituents of his shake) are themselves real food.

Shouji said he would cut back on his protein shakes in favor of tuna fish and peanut butter. I think this is a good place to start. I don't consider "whey" to be real food for the same reason I don't consider "fish oil" to be real food. I'll have to respectfully agree to disagree with you on that point. Milk and fish are however, in my opinion, real food.

Where is the proof of this statement? "Excess protein is converted to sugar and fatty acids, if those cals are not burned they will be stored as fat. The body can not assimilate unlimited amounts of protein. The rest will be wasted."

Where is the proof of this statement? "Excess protein is converted to sugar and fatty acids, if those cals are not burned they will be stored as fat. The body can not assimilate unlimited amounts of protein. The rest will be wasted."

Yea, it is pretty well known. Protein gets converted to aminos which becomes glucose or fat, basically it will be fat unless your glycogen stores are depleted from being on a low-carb diet or any diet for that matter. Other times could be early in the morning after fasting for 8+ hours or after a workout, this is why breakfast should be your biggest meal, as well as your PWO meal. To clarify it though, ANYTHING you take in excess can be stored as fat: protein/carbs/and fat all contain calories and caloric surplus will lead to weight gain unless like I said earlier you are depleted of glycogen stores. You don't piss out excess protein you only piss out the nitrogen so your body can turn it into glucose or fat.

You're body doesn't see the world as whey shakes versus cans of tuna. It views it grams of protein versus grams of protein. There is absolutely no difference.

Drink up the protein shakes kid.

"You shall invite to the path of your Lord with wisdom and kind enlightenment, and debate with them in the best possible manner. Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His path, and He knows best who are the guided ones."- Quran 16:25

"You shall invite to the path of your Lord with wisdom and kind enlightenment, and debate with them in the best possible manner. Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His path, and He knows best who are the guided ones."- Quran 16:25

Aw see, now you're mixing in incomplete proteins with complete proteins. This does not validate your argument.

It completely invalidates yours. You said your body views a gram of protein as a gram of protein, and it clearly doesn't. Different proteins posses different amino acid profiles, some are assimilated more easily than others, some are assimilated more slowly than others, but they are all different.

It completely invalidates yours. You said your body views a gram of protein as a gram of protein, and it clearly doesn't. Different proteins posses different amino acid profiles, some are assimilated more easily than others, some are assimilated more slowly than others, but they are all different.

Bottom line: Get an assortment of proteins from a variety of sources.

And this has nothing to do with whether they come from powders, milk, animals, or the like. Which was my point, reading comprehension works.

So you are wrong...protein from powders is just fine. You can get all types from powders.

"You shall invite to the path of your Lord with wisdom and kind enlightenment, and debate with them in the best possible manner. Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His path, and He knows best who are the guided ones."- Quran 16:25

Good luck with your beef protein powder. I hear it's good blended with ketchup.

Same amino acid profile as whey...

Glad to see another wannabe e-guru go down cuz you're showing that you lack a lot of knowledge buddy.

"You shall invite to the path of your Lord with wisdom and kind enlightenment, and debate with them in the best possible manner. Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His path, and He knows best who are the guided ones."- Quran 16:25

Sincerely this article was just intended to offer some really basic, common sense advice that beginners can use to avoid many of the pitfalls that come with starting out in bodybuilding. We seem to have gotten stuck on one very small point of how many protein shakes one should drink. I think whey protein is great and I have a shake every day, but I don't base my diet around it. That's all the point I was trying to make. There is a lot more in the article that I think everyone can agree on. Let's try to find some common ground here and not pick apart every minute detail. We're all here to better ourselves.